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Projected As Next Nepal PM Balen Shah Launch Campaign In Kathmandu As Election Draws Close

Toshima Karki, a candidate from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), waits outside the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, on February 28, 2026, for Balen (Balendra) Shah, the former Kathmandu Mayor and Prime Ministerial candidate for the upcoming House of Representatives election. The rapper-turned-mayor resigned from his post on January 18 to contest the March 5 election. The former rapper, who won the local election of 2022 in the Nepali capital, also assumes the role of senior leader of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) on the same day. Projected as the next Prime Minister of Nepal, Balendra Shah (Balen) launches a Kathmandu-centric campaign as the election draws close, with polling set for March 5. Balen, standing in the fray from Jhapa against former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, launches the campaign in Kathmandu with a roadshow. Hundreds of supporters and voters stand on the side of the road as the projected Prime Minister, alongside the party president Rabi Lamichhane, greets voters from a moving vehicle. The silence period for the election of the House of Representatives, dissolved after September's Gen-Z protest, is set to start from March 2, past midnight. Balen campaigns across the nation as his party, the Rastriya Swatantra Party, is poised to win the election with a landslide victory. On December 28, Balen strikes a deal with the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), agreeing that he will be the next Prime Ministerial candidate from the party. As per the 7-point agreement, RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane continues as the party's central chairman, while Shah will be presented as the party's parliamentary leader after the elections and its prime ministerial candidate. The RSP emerges as the fourth largest political force, winning 21 seats in the dissolved House of Representatives within a year of its establishment. Balen promises to institutionalize the agenda raised by September's Gen-Z movement. (Photo by STR/NurPhoto)

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